Most service businesses eventually reach the same point. They deliver excellent work, invest in talented people, refine their processes, and expand their capabilities. Yet growth begins to slow, and prospective customers continue comparing them primarily on price.
The instinctive response is to improve execution. Add another service. Strengthen operations. Invest in better technology. Produce more marketing.
Mike LaVista believes the constraint often appears much earlier.
Companies spend too much time explaining what they do and too little time communicating the business problems they solve. That distinction seems small, but it changes who enters the conversation, how prospects evaluate the company, and ultimately how much value they assign to its work.
For scaling CEOs, this is not a marketing adjustment. It is a strategic decision about how the business competes.
That realization transformed Caxy from a software consultancy competing for projects into a strategic partner engaged in executive conversations about competitive advantage.
As companies grow, capabilities naturally expand.
A law firm adds practice areas. A software consultancy adds design, AI, and data services. A marketing agency expands into analytics, branding, and video production.
Each addition makes sense individually because every new capability creates another opportunity to serve existing clients.
Collectively, however, those additions often dilute the company's identity.
When prospective clients hear a list of services, they evaluate providers based on activities rather than outcomes. The conversation becomes transactional. Buyers compare qualifications, portfolios, timelines, and pricing because little separates one capable provider from another.
LaVista realized Caxy had fallen into that same pattern.
Like many service firms, the company introduced itself by explaining what it built instead of why clients hired them.
The breakthrough came when he reframed every conversation around the problems Caxy solved and the organizations best positioned to benefit from that expertise.
As LaVista explains, "The breakthrough was to switch to the problems we solve and for whom."
That single change altered the level of every sales conversation.
Rather than waiting for someone who needed software development, Caxy began speaking with companies seeking a strategic advantage through technology.
The audience changed.
The questions changed.
The value of the engagement changed.
Instead of working primarily with technology leaders responsible for implementation budgets, Caxy increasingly found itself working directly with CEOs making strategic investment decisions.
Growth did not begin with a new service.
It began with a different definition of the business.
Positioning and niching are often treated as separate initiatives. They are closely connected.
A company cannot clearly communicate the problem it solves if it attempts to solve every problem for every customer. Likewise, specialization has little value if the company cannot explain why its experience produces better business outcomes.
After redefining Caxy's positioning, LaVista made another decision that many service firms resist.
He narrowed the firm's focus.
Rather than presenting Caxy as a technology partner for every industry, the company concentrated on markets where accumulated experience created meaningful advantages. One example was tribal casinos—a specialized market with unique operating requirements and regulatory complexity.
The market itself was relatively small.
The opportunity inside that market was not.
Every successful engagement expanded Caxy's understanding of the industry's challenges. Future projects became easier to execute. Prospective clients immediately recognized relevant experience. Referral partners understood exactly who should call.
Expertise began compounding.
That compounding effect extended well beyond marketing.
Sales conversations accelerated because credibility required less explanation.
Delivery improved because the team repeatedly solved similar business problems.
Relationships deepened because clients recognized that Caxy understood their business rather than simply its technology.
For many CEOs, the greatest obstacle to specialization is fear.
Every niche excludes potential work.
LaVista argues that exclusion is often the mechanism that creates premium demand.
The shift in positioning produced another consequence.
Caxy stopped competing primarily on capability and began competing on judgment.
Many service firms attempt to justify premium pricing by emphasizing credentials, certifications, client lists, or technical expertise.
Those elements establish competence.
They rarely establish distinction.
LaVista's approach is different.
Instead of demonstrating expertise by talking about the company, Caxy demonstrates expertise through the quality of its questions.
Those questions expose issues prospective clients have not fully considered.
How will the organization govern its AI investments?
What happens if projected technology costs exceed expectations?
How will leadership explain this strategy to the board?
Rather than persuading prospects that Caxy possesses expertise, those conversations allow prospects to discover where their own thinking remains incomplete.
That changes the nature of the buying decision.
The comparison is no longer between two firms capable of building software.
The comparison becomes one between a vendor executing a project and an advisor helping leadership make better decisions.
LaVista saw that change reflected in measurable business results.
As the company shifted toward consultative conversations centered on executive problems, average deal sizes increased by more than five times over a three-year period. Relationships became longer-term. Strategic conversations replaced transactional engagements.
His conclusion captures the idea succinctly:
"If you can ask the better question...you earn the brand leadership."
Premium pricing follows because clients begin purchasing confidence rather than hours.
AI is an important theme throughout the conversation, but LaVista's perspective differs from much of today's discussion.
He does not dismiss automation.
He questions whether automation represents the most valuable opportunity.
He compares today's AI environment to the early days of email.
Email dramatically improved communication, but it was only the first visible application of the internet. The businesses that ultimately changed entire industries emerged years later by discovering opportunities that early users could not yet imagine.
LaVista believes AI is following a similar path.
Many organizations are concentrating on completing existing work more quickly.
That creates efficiency.
The larger opportunity is improving the quality of organizational thinking.
Leadership teams can evaluate more strategic alternatives before committing resources. Competitive research that once required weeks can be performed continuously. Teams can identify risks earlier and challenge assumptions more effectively.
Within Caxy, AI is not replacing experienced developers.
It is reducing repetitive work so those developers can spend more time solving difficult business problems, improving architecture, and exercising professional judgment.
Technology strengthens capability.
People remain responsible for judgment.
One principle connects every decision LaVista describes.
Each one made the business easier to understand.
The positioning became clearer.
The target customer became more specific.
The value proposition became more precise.
The sales conversation became simpler.
None of those decisions reduced the sophistication of the business.
They reduced the effort required for customers to recognize why Caxy was different.
That distinction matters for scaling CEOs.
Growth naturally introduces complexity. New markets, new services, and new opportunities compete for attention. Leadership often responds by expanding messaging to reflect everything the business can do.
Customers experience that complexity differently.
The broader the message becomes, the more difficult it becomes to understand where the company is uniquely valuable.
Strategic simplicity requires discipline because it means deliberately leaving attractive opportunities unexplored.
The companies that consistently command premium pricing rarely communicate the longest list of capabilities.
They communicate the clearest reason to hire them.
Mike LaVista's experience offers a useful reminder that strategic growth often begins with changing how a company defines itself.
Organizations that describe their services invite comparison.
Organizations that define the business problems they solve create different conversations, attract different buyers, and earn different economics.
That positioning becomes even stronger when paired with deliberate specialization. Deep expertise creates sharper judgment. Sharper judgment produces better questions. Better questions build trust long before a proposal is presented.
Those decisions shaped Caxy's trajectory, but they also illustrate a broader principle for scaling CEOs.
The market rarely rewards companies for doing more.
It rewards companies that make it immediately clear why they matter.
The full episode explores these ideas in greater depth, including LaVista's perspective on AI, consultative selling, and the leadership decisions that transformed Caxy's growth.
Mike LaVista is the Founder and CEO of Caxy, a Chicago-based software development and AI consulting firm. Over more than 25 years, he has led the company from a small software consultancy into a strategic technology partner for growth-oriented organizations. His work focuses on positioning, consultative selling, AI strategy, and helping companies use technology to create lasting competitive advantage.
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Jeff Holman is a CEO advisor, legal strategist, and founder of Intellectual Strategies. With years of experience guiding leaders through complex business and legal challenges, Jeff equips CEOs to scale with confidence by blending legal expertise with strategic foresight. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Intellectual Strategies provides innovative legal solutions for CEOs and founders through its fractional legal team model. By offering proactive, integrated legal support at predictable costs, the firm helps leaders protect their businesses, manage risk, and focus on growth with confidence.
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The Breakout CEO podcast brings you inside the pivotal moments of scaling leaders. Each week, host Jeff Holman spotlights breakout stories of scaling CEOs—showing how resilience, insight, and strategy create pivotal inflection points and lasting growth.
Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform:
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Want to be a guest—or know a scaling CEO with a breakout story to share? Apply directly at go.intellectualstrategies.com.
TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY:
00:00 – Musician Turned Tech Entrepreneur
02:55 – Luck Landed Their First Client
06:29 – Performance Skills Built Better Leaders
12:31 – Developers Need Leaders Who Understand
17:54 – AI Should Empower Human Talent
21:46 – CEOs Need AI Thinking Partners
24:29 – Small Teams Can Compete Bigger
27:44 – Focus Before Building New Businesses
33:59 – Sell Problems, Not Your Services
40:05 – Better Questions Command Premium Prices
44:11 – Niching Down Creates Massive Growth
47:12 – Fear Stops Great Companies Growing
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Jeff Holman (00:00)
The breakthrough was to switch to the problems we solve and for whom. Now you can't work for everybody. You can ask the better question if you earn the brand leadership. We're in the email era of AI.
Mike LaVista (00:10)
Welcome back, everybody, to the Breakout CEO podcast. I am so excited. I every week I get a talk to really interesting people, ⁓ CEOs who've done cool things, built great businesses, and they're here to share, they're here to share their insights with ⁓ with you and and me and all of our audience. And it's such a it's such a pleasure to, I don't know, just be brought in behind the curtain a little bit with CEOs. Today we've got a great guest for you, ⁓ Mike LaVista with Caxi. Mike, hey, thanks for coming on the show.
Jeff Holman (00:40)
Jeff, excited to talk to you and if we ever get to I wanna know about the swords behind you on the wall.
Mike LaVista (00:45)
the so yeah. well I can tell you real briefly, it's it's a it's a replica of the Griffin Warrior. the Griffin Warrior was about fourteen hundred to sixteen hundred BC in in Greece and represents kind of the bringing together of of different eras, bridging of of a couple of different eras and a couple of different communities. ⁓ I was there last I've got some history with Greece. My wife's family is from Greece and ⁓
I feel like and I've claimed to be adopted by the Greek ⁓ culture because I I I don't know what it is. I really like it. ⁓
Jeff Holman (01:21)
That's right. Thanks asking. And and and as far as like a ki Kismet goes, my my son's high school mascot was the Griffin. So I think we're on we're already off to a good start. Let's roll.
Mike LaVista (01:29)
Awesome. Awesome. Well, yeah. So ⁓ I don't know. I I I'm now my mind's gonna be like in the back processing and be like, how can we put this together? What we're gonna come we're gonna we're gonna bring this full circle, I'm sure, by the end of the episode here. But ⁓ but let's talk about what you're what you're doing, what you're building. I wanna set the stage a little bit because a lot of people are are doing AI, right? And there's this whole thing about AI is gonna make your business better and
And and a lot of that's true. Like there's nothing wrong with that. but we're not necessarily here to just say, here's what you need to do to implement AI in your business. We want to talk about like how AI is or or how your experiences with your building your business both led to you know breakout moments that you can share with other people that might or might not involve the AI explicitly. But then also I think we maybe you've got some thoughts about how ⁓ how AI is helping you rethink.
How to be a CEO perhaps, or how AI is helping you ⁓ connect with other CEOs in a in a different way than than you know what we might have done or what how we might have thought thought about it in the past. So but before we dig into all that, tell us about how you got into into the business. ⁓ you weren't always in AI, clearly, because it hasn't exist. Hasn't been around that long. Yeah. I think you mentioned you were a ⁓ musician before, is that right?
Jeff Holman (02:55)
Yeah,
yeah, I I have a kind of a strange entrepreneurial path and that is out of college as I was, you know, waiting tables and other things, I ended up joining a ⁓ among other things, I ended up joining an eighties cover band. And so for about five years out of college I was touring the country and playing bars and college campuses, ⁓ wearing a mesh t shirt and parachute pants and playing, you know, ⁓ Panama and ⁓ you know,
you know Madonna and Sidney Lauper and all kinds of crazy stuff. Yes. And it was it's a r it was a really fun gig and life's you know and and you know I married the singer and those guys are all my best friends ever. ⁓ but I I remember I remember playing Jesse's girl at the University of Northern Iowa and going, I can't do this when I'm 60. I gotta I gotta find something else to do and I'd always been involved with computers. My grandfather, strangely, was involved with he was a computer programmer in like the sixties and seventies
And got my cousin and I really into computer programming. In fact, ⁓ this is how I have the gray hair to prove it. My grandfather once got my cousin and I a printed book of computer programs that one would take home and page by page type it in and voila the snake game. And and that just that got me hooked. But computers weren't such an exciting career when I was coming out of high school and college. ⁓ it didn't become what it is now, which is just, you know, ⁓ you know, everywhere. It wasn't everywhere yet.
And it wasn't this God, I feel so old talking about it this way, but like the internet really kind of kicked off during this period. And ⁓ I had some friends that kinda get involved in what your history books will call the dot com boom. And I was like, you know, my friends said, We should we should do something. You you do computers, right? I'm like, maybe. And so we started this company at the end of this band ⁓ cycle, ⁓ just kind of backwards, like, let's do some computer stuff was the business plan. And for about a year and a half we made absolutely no progress at all.
And I your listeners are kind of looking for those breakthrough moments. And like a lot of people in many businesses, ⁓ luck had a lot to do with it. In fact, whenever I meet someone who thinks they weren't lucky, it doesn't take long to track down their origin story to go, ⁓ lightning struck here and you didn't realize it. And so for me, we ⁓ we took out a really expensive ad in the big trade publication here in Chicago. And ⁓ it was a three month ad, three month, I think it was a full page ad, three month ad. I think it was half page.
Well, sake of history, I'd say it's a full page. And ⁓ and no one called the first month, no one called the second month, and no one called the third month, and we were literally getting ready to pack the boxes up. And someone called, and it wasn't a client, but it was so it was another agency that said, our client saw your ad and said, Can you guys do that? Because that sounds kind of cool. We'd we'd like to do that. And ⁓ they said we don't actually, but we can call these guys. And so they did. And so our like our first client was Citibank, just because of a random ⁓ lightning strike.
They happened someone happened to read the ⁓ the the the trade the trade pub. So that was just random luck breakout. So probably not as strategic as you would hope. ⁓ but then I spent probably ten years making a transition from being like the key technology person to moving over to sales and account and other things, which I I found myself being really surprised that I really, really liked. maybe even more than programming. So that's kind of at least the first chunk of my career there.
Mike LaVista (06:15)
Well, I have a few questions. ⁓ and maybe our audience does too. That I I I I'm sure some of them are wondering how long how like did any of the mesh shirts and parachute pants carry over into the into the business?
Jeff Holman (06:29)
Well, I mean, ⁓ okay, so so it's funny. So I have a procha podcast as well and there was a period of time for about a year, maybe going back about two or three years ago, where I did maybe eight months of just content for CEOs who were musicians. And the reason is what I thought kind of dragged over from the mesh shirt stuff was, you know, ⁓ this'll make sense probably as I just talk about this that, you know, speaking in front of a ⁓ a board or an audience or something, well I'd
been on stage with a thousand people and right, you know, like organizing a team. Well, I had to, you know, wrangle, you know, the whole wrangling cats thing. Like I got a band of five or six you know, members and we had to figure out how to get from Chicago to Rhode Island in the middle of the night. Right. Right. Like a lot of those skills and, you know, dedicating yourself to an instrument is like dedicing yourself dedicating yourself to a p you know profession or skill. Those things really carried over and think mostly for me, and I think I kind of show up to some people as maybe a little bit of an extrovert. I'm not at all.
And I I feel like it's something I know how to I'm on a podcast. I have a switch I can flip that I learned playing music. And that there's a kind of a so I I think I credit a lot of you know how I show up and who I became to those experiences which were hard. And there's nothing like either kind of getting like you know what's worse than getting booed is silence, is finishing a song and you're like and then and then no one makes you just hear like glasses clinking and people murmuring. It was like
Like that kind of stuff I think really carries forward. So I'm a big proponent of you know not only music education but performance.
Mike LaVista (08:01)
to. Well what would you sell tell I mean on that note, what would you tell somebody, another CEO who says, Man, I just I like I can't put on, you know, my stage face. I like I like I want to be authentic and and but but but I I'm having a hard time getting success. Like how do they how do you reconcile those or how what would you say to somebody who's who's like you, not totally extroverted, but it has some success, but just can't quite unlock the the stage presence.
Just a quick note about our guests. I host the Breakout CEO podcast to share behind the scenes insights from scaling businesses. As an attorney, I see the real challenges leaders face long before success becomes public. But clients' stories have to stay confidential. So we invite guest CEOs to share their own moments of struggle and success. I'm so grateful to our guests and my team at Intellectual Strategies for making this show possible. Now
Let's get back to the show.
Jeff Holman (09:01)
I don't think I've ever asked the question. That's really good question. I love it. And that that's that's my stall to figure out a good answer. So I think it's a couple of things that came to mind. So one, ⁓ I remember talking to one of our younger salespeople who just hadn't done a lot of it, and saying that you know, if if you go to a networking event and you're nervous, it's not like going to a bar and trying to talk to people. It's totally the opposite. If you're at a business event, people expect you to come up and talk to you. So like some of the hacks I have are just like,
And we've all done this. You if you're at a conference and there's three people talking at a you know stand-up table or whatever, just walk up like go, hey you guys mind if I inter introduce myself. I've never in 20 years had anyone go, actually, this is a private conversation, sir. Please go away. And you know, you you don't have to worry about like there's literally like people are dying for that because honestly, most people go to conferences and don't know anybody, right? So I I I feel like that's something. And then I think something from the the music stuff is ⁓ and maybe like like I'm I'm trying to get better at golf.
It's like golf too, where like you can't expect to go out and have your first shot be great. You gotta hit a hundred or a thousand shots for it to be like, I get this, right? So if your CEO is like, I don't how to turn it on, ⁓ I always say with creative endeavors, and I I would say like doing something like this is a creative endeavor, expect that your first ten will be terrible. And your your first ten projects, your first ten songs, your first ten poems, your first ten, you know, blogs will be bad.
And you have to develop that muscle and have the expectation that you will improve, not the expectation that you will be great right away.
Mike LaVista (10:32)
Yeah, that makes sense. Make make makes sense. I I think there's something here, I was because I was I can't remember when I was if I was listening to a podcast the other day or watching something and and there's this whole concept of ⁓ of essentially ⁓ adopting an alter ego, right? And and I know some people have also done that. They said, Listen, when I go out there as a CEO or as a musician, I just have an alter ego and I put it on and that that's that's who I am. It doesn't, you know, it's not necessarily that it's inconsistent with who I am.
in other times. It's just it it's just that gives me that's that's my my clothing, that's my outfit when I when I go into these settings. So I've heard that's
Jeff Holman (11:10)
You know it's funny, I was listening to ⁓ weirdly Larry David on a podcast recently. yeah. And he said something about like he for a while earlier on he was he got uncomfortable at parties and he realized that all he had to do was turn on T V Larry and he could be that guy. And like he kinda knew that character. He knew he knew that that character to put on. And that's kind of funny for him 'cause it's a it's an amusing character. But like I think if you think of yourself as like we just said, here's my CEO face for this. and honestly as we say this, ⁓ you know
I also feel like I'd been in a lot of CEO groups when I was younger and I remember sort of like modeling the behavior of the older people and being like, that's how you that that's the presence, that's the energy. I know one of the things I do is I tend to start talking too quickly and you know, there's a lot of gravity that comes with slowing it down and being more serious. And like I like I have to remember that. I don't do it. So it's like I think some of those things again, they're just learned, you know.
Mike LaVista (12:03)
Yeah. And having having just being in those settings, putting yourself out there, taking action. If you don't do it, you you're never gonna learn it. You're never gonna get through your first ten strokes or whatever it is. You're ⁓ and and yeah. Well I'm gonna I I think I'm gonna take away from this. This is I'm gonna I'm gonna call that the mess the mesh outfit for some reason. I think that that's in here.
Jeff Holman (12:21)
I still have it downstairs somewhere. I got the whole I had three outfits. I got all still.
Mike LaVista (12:26)
Well if we ever have you on a second time.
Jeff Holman (12:28)
That's my commitment to you. That's my commitment to the bit.
Mike LaVista (12:31)
All right. So so you mentioned you mentioned that you went in and you were doing all these other roles. I'm really curious because I mean CEOs, the it's a it's a really unique role in a company, right? You're you're the visionary, you're the strategy, you're the you're the rah-rah cheerleader, you're you're trying to get everybody to do everything. You may or may not understand exactly how they do it or what their magic powers are. You're trying to get people smarter than you, but but to go in and actually experience these things.
and be in those roles before building your own company i is super powerful, right? There a lot of a lot of companies now tout, hey, everybody who starts has to go through a series of, you know, customer service ⁓ days or whatever. W what's your takeaway from the different roles that you were in? Which which ones carried over most prominently for you as a CEO? Yeah.
Jeff Holman (13:24)
Yeah,
I I would say that, you know, our our company has ⁓ maybe not too many roles, but certainly there are production roles and there are management roles and there are sales roles and all kinds of other things. And so I spent a long time early in the in the history of the company being our main developer. And so my friend, my partner, ⁓ was the person kind of doing client and sales and other stuff. And I could just lock myself in a in a closet and just be, you know, kind of a bang away itself. Yeah. And
I felt like that experience has led to, you know, has led to me understanding the developer journey. And while I don't really do a lot of the technologies that we that the company offers right now, I kind of dabble, but like I'm it's more like I know how it's all supposed to work. And today's tech is this and tomorrow's tech could be something else. ⁓ I feel like you know, a value that I I hope people would agree at the company is that we are a place where it's awesome to be a developer because we get that job.
And I feel like if I were to say, if I were to paint a picture of like a like a bad place to be a developer, there are a lot of places where being a developer is sort of treated like like sweatshop work and like you know, like you know, they're they're you know, a whip is cracking over your head as you're demanded to figure something out by Friday. And and development is sort of a it's one of the it's a weird job. It's a it's a job where the work you're doing doesn't work, doesn't work, doesn't work, doesn't work, finally works, and then you go to the next tech and it doesn't work, doesn't work.
And it's just a it's a weird, ⁓ it's a weird profession to be in and it's always experimenting and you're always learning something new. And the second you think you've mastered something, that technology goes away because that's old stuff. Now we get to the new stuff. And so I feel like I appreciate that and I know how hard it is to stay current and stay up on things. And we start off talking a little bit about AI. ⁓ AI, ⁓ like like this whole ⁓ you know, ⁓ the things can be a a challenge or an opportunity thing. ⁓ when it when
We we'd been in AI or or or broadly speaking, machine learning for, you know, seven or eight years, whenever it really kind of started to get big, maybe it's ten years now. ⁓ but it wasn't until L L N's came along with Chat GPT and Claude and all those things that people like, my god, this is so amazing and also so easy to use that for a while there, ⁓ I was kinda worried if we could even have a business anymore. 'Cause if you read the papers, you read the the interviews, you know, ⁓ this
Junior developer jobs gone. You know, entry for you, entry level law clerks gone. Like, do you want to you don't need any of that? And and I kind of I don't know if I believed it, but I was sort of worried it might be right for a while. And I don't know about your your your your field, but for us, we've realized actually, no, no junior developer d jobs are not going away. They're not going anywhere. The the the truly ⁓ the the message that that has to come out of this is to be in any job, it has to be whatever you're doing.
plus AI. So for our developers, it's like we don't want it writing all the code, but there's some things it does really well that we hate doing. And, you know, so ⁓ this is a trivial example like in the weeds for development, but like ⁓ clients never want to pay for testing and yet it's really important. Well guess what? AI is great at that. And so instead of having people bang away on tests that no one wants to pay for or no one wants to do, but are hugely valuable, we have AI work on that. And so it's I th what I want our company to be in is ⁓
We want to be the company that figures out how to deliver the best, highest quality, most performing enterprise software that uses AI in the process, because your average Joe who just sits down and uses Claude isn't going to get there. And so to actually, I'm I'm giving these long answers to your questions, but where you started was these are great. These are great. You know, what about, you know, having ⁓ a history and development helps me do that better? Well, it helps me, helps me not be a jerk.
And when I look at some of the the the the the stuff online, it's like, you know, so and so is laying off 10,000 people because they figure out how to replace them with AI. Well, you're wrong. And then six months later you have to hire them all back. And maybe we all know it was a charade for the street or you had a bad quarter and you want to blame I AI, but whatever. Right. But we're not gonna do that. And we're gonna we're gonna find the way to make it human, ⁓ the the make the human part of it like accentuated. And honestly, there are people at the company who are kind of like,
have spoken out about like is this is AI even really ethical and all the energy and resource demands. And I wanna find the path through that satisfies all of that. Ethical, you know, environmental, our company, our clients, there is a solution and we're gonna find it.
Mike LaVista (17:54)
I love that 'cause it it it you know, you're focusing on the empowerment side of it, right? It's it th th there are challenges for sure, but there are also lots of opportunities. I I actually spoke with ⁓ a section of the Utah State Bar this morning and presented on a topic kind of similar. I'm like, hey, you know, disruption's happening. Disruption has happened in the past in different ways. It's happening again with AI and and managed service organizations and and all these things that are happening where venture capital is coming into the legal industry. And and my takeaway was
I think a little bit like what you're saying and it's probably broadly applies to a lot of industries, which is, you know, the disruption's here. Yeah. There's not a whole lot we can do about it, except leverage it, right? Yeah. Why not leverage it so that we as attorneys who have this unique kind of access into the into the infrastructure of companies across disciplines, right? Where we become more strategically inclined, more strategically valuable instead of, you know, less helpful or
Or more perfunctory in a way. Like let's let's take the opportunity, free up some time, start to learn to really be the the keystone in the in the business strategy instead of just the you know, the the legal help, the vending machine attorney that you just put more money into when you want another contract. So it I I mean, we'll see if we're right, right? But ⁓ but man, I'd rather have that I'd rather have that outlook than just be like, nah, we're dead. It's absolutely industry's gone.
Jeff Holman (19:19)
And and the idea I've been ⁓ writing a little bit about is I think we're in the email era of AI. And what I mean by that is when when the internet first kinda came into existence, the first amazing idea was, hey, remember that slow paper mail that we have with the stamps? Forget that. We have a new thing. It's called email. It goes faster. And so now we have faster mail, and that's cool. And that was a really great invention, right? But like no one envisioned like full, completely internet bus based businesses like Netflix or
You know, like like we're we're doing, you know, we're doing work on an airplane through satellite technology. Like all these things, like that's that's what AI in in ten or twenty years is gonna be when we figured out the cool thing to do. Cause right now, like automating an email response or we're back to email, automating an email response or you know, reading the brief or whatever, I guess is in it's a little helpful, but there's something, there's a second or third order effect that's gonna happen that we are all collectively part of figuring out.
And I wanna get there and have that be valuable.
Mike LaVista (20:20)
Well and to your email example, like like w we're not so advanced that getting a little bit of help with the email isn't actually helpful. Like that's that's mak people are doing it because it makes a difference because we're not too far ahead of that ⁓ anyways. But ⁓ no, I I love it. ⁓ and and I love I was just talking to daughter, ⁓ we took a vacation and we're flying and I'm like, it kinda funny that we can, you know I think we were driving down the road after the after the trip and we're pointed up to the plan. I'm like, man, it's funny we s you know, we we we can like
Walk around and walk around up in the air. You know, we happen to be inside of a plane, but you just get up and you walk around, you sit down, you get on computer, watch watch your movies, and that's all happening 35, 40,000 feet in the air. ⁓ I don't know. It's it's fun to think where AI is gonna take us given all the things that we've been able to do without AI so far. Yeah. ⁓ you mentioned before though, and I I'm really curious about your thoughts where AI is going to like how is AI, in addition to automating businesses, ⁓ how is AI helping the C suite?
operate differently or helping CEOs think differently about their business. Not that hopefully not, you know, automation's one thing. Being faster, being more cost effective is one thing, but is there something about it that makes us that that gives CEOs a better opportunity to be a better CEO or or ⁓ you know bring new dimensions into the role or into the business that didn't exist before? What are your thoughts on that?
Jeff Holman (21:46)
So when when I think about working with CEOs, there three things I I'm expecting them to care about. And it's gonna be risk, you know, how how do I how do I manage the risk in the in the business better? How do I create growth? And how do I create innovation or differentiation? And so one of the most important things AI can help with is iterating. And so for let's let's take the growth example. you know, if you're looking for growth, a lot of times companies are stuck on the things that they've always done and they have kind of a playbook, right?
But you know, just having AI as your thought iteration partner to say, okay, here's what we're doing. Give me like ⁓ I always like to like give it a number. Give me thirty one ideas for new growth for Jeff's law firm. And ⁓ and iterating on that, you you're the you're the editor, right? You're the person who's looking at it and picking out of the thirty one, okay, seven, eleven, twenty two, twenty nine, let's pick take those out. So you're you're help you're you're guiding that and it helps break out of a rut.
I I think that's that that's a pretty good use case. ⁓ I think you know th and the same goes for the other categories as well. If you're looking at risk, you're looking at differentiation. ⁓ I think it's also pretty good at at doing research. So for example, you know, you want to do you know, what what are our competitors doing? ⁓ you know, you can have a research department. ⁓ and here's one of those where it's like I might have my research department armed with AI better. So instead of like it taking a month to do a report on what's happening, we have a daily
of the thirty competitors we care about and what changed from yesterday. And just think about the scale of what what would happen if you had, you know, a an asset in the company that could go look at a thousand websites today and come back with, you know, what it found, what was different. Now people look at that and go, okay, let's let's pick this apart. ⁓ so we I think it's like it's really thinking as a CEO about what are the things I what are the ideas I can do at scale that I couldn't do before. And that I think that's the thing. It's ⁓ I'd love for companies to
get past doing what we did already faster and coming up with what could we do that we weren't able to do before. I think that's where that's where we find the, you know, when I think about ⁓ you know companies that have these ideas where like, you know, the the legacy company was doing X and they came up with the digital thing that ended up being 10 or 100 X of the original company. It's because they thought of something new to do. It's not because they did something faster.
Mike LaVista (24:06)
Yeah. Is this something that you've seen in in your own business and your in your experience? Like what like if we if we were just to get down to the brass tacks here and say, Yeah, you know, w Mike, what what have you done in your business? Excuse me. Yeah. Mike, what have you done in your business to like that that you're doing differently now? Maybe n you know, maybe faster, but but what are the things you're really doing differently with your team or with your client?
Jeff Holman (24:29)
Right.
So so one of the things that we've done, ⁓ I th I think AI allows ⁓ small and mid sized players to punch above their weight and play like a big player. So for example, ⁓ I'm thinking okay, so here's some examples. So in our business, ⁓ we're online, we're digital, and for us to keep up with the big guys to do, you know, video and blogs and all you know, ⁓ content and
keep our site SEO up to date. And now there's GEO. I want to peer in chat GPT when people ask about AI consulting companies. All those things would have meant managing either a cadre of agencies and partners or hiring all these these people to do that kind of work. And instead we're able to keep up with it, I think, ⁓ at the pace that the bigger companies might be doing by just creating agents to do some of that work for us, then we edit ⁓ and we and we and we do that. ⁓
Part of it has been, you know, Caxi has been in the software development business for a long time. And ⁓ yet we didn't have any products you could that we did, right? And so ⁓ you know, AI allowed us to take some of the products we'd always used for our own business, turn them into products. ⁓ and then also we've got a few that were like, actually, this would be cool. And since we know what we're doing, we can create a product better, faster than you know, the every show using, you know, something like Cloud. And so we created some products for that. In fact, one of them
that I'll send you a free link to is we we have a podcast ⁓ editing a publishing suite that's like all the tools that we you normally used pulled together into one thing and some new ones that you can't get anywhere else. And so we're trying to like show like we are we hey we do this too kind of thing. ⁓ and and I think it's it's thinking again thinking of what's the different thing we can do with this new capability as a CEO that is a lot of the stuff that I advise people on. And and it's really you know most organizations do get stuck in the same old thing and just doing it faster.
Mike LaVista (26:17)
Yeah. I I I've seen a lot of companies doing that where it's almost like we're we're we're creating new products, new revenue streams, because we have the capabilities, right? And and I wonder if there's ⁓ a limit to where that's gonna go. ⁓ I always think of when I talk to and I say this because when I talk to clients about their ⁓ you know, I'm I'm an attorney, people think, you just do law. Well, I I talk to a lot of people about their business. I'm I'm in a lot of those meetings with the CEOs and C suite already.
And and I don't mind sharing my opinions on it, but ⁓ one thing that I I share that seems to come across as I don't know, a little bit new to some people. I'm like, hey, listen, when you you start a new product, you're actually you need to think about this as its own business in a lot of ways because you've probably gotta, you know, enter a new market. You gotta create new assets, you gotta it's a different revenue stream, maybe a different revenue model. Like like all of a sudden you you're attacking on a not just a product onto your business, you ha you're you're actually entering a s or creating a second business.
to go along with your first business and you know how those grow, they they might stay aligned, they might not. Like how do you think about that? Because I think there's a while it is an opportunity to branch out, I've seen some companies, you know, AI or otherwise, that branch out so quickly, they're like, We're doing awesome. Let's start four more companies. Yeah. And then they've got five companies that aren't doing well instead of instead of one or one or two that are doing great.
Jeff Holman (27:44)
It's really interesting. I I feel like I do I love the I I follow this phenomenon a lot and I'm very curious about it. Because I think that the the core of it is you need to be intelligent and strategic about what business you're in. And ⁓ the ⁓ the the the maybe the original big CEO for FedEx, I want to say is Fred Smith. People in the comments will correct me. But he had a saying that was keep the main thing the main thing. And what we know FedEx does is deliver overnight.
Like that was like where that was like their main thing, right? And I think about like McDonald's, for example, doesn't make their their wrappers and their cardboard boxes, right? They they're not in the cardboard box business. So they have a partner that they do a hundred million, I'm making this up, a hundred million dollars of business with that supplies their cardboard boxes for the the Big Macs because that's not the business they're in, right? And so I I find a lot of the companies that we work with are like a manufacturing company that all of a sudden is hiring developers because
Development looks easy now. And they don't know how hard it is to grow and maintain an engineering culture and to keep people interested and to give them the cool things to work on to keep them from going somewhere else. And they just they they they kind of ⁓ they underestimate the complexity and care that it takes to have this, as you just said, completely new business. And so, and granted grain of salt because this is what we do, but I think there are for most companies.
It's a new business that it's probably better for you to buy the boxes like McDonald's and have a partner do it. ⁓ but you're still the person who knows what boxes work for your customers and what should go in the box and all that kind of stuff. But don't make the boxes. And I'm probably confusing metaphors here. But I I I really think that like be careful about what business you're in, because you said it. Why have why, you know, there's a saying that's like chase two rabbits can catch none. You know, so like fix it ha have a good business.
then strategically go into this other one if it seems like it's a fit for you, but understand there's more of a challenge than you probably think.
Mike LaVista (29:42)
Yeah, so so having said that, and I I appreciate that because I I I'm I wasn't trying to make you go against kind of the services you sell, but but there's this there's this tension, right? That that a lot of CEOs are are right now saying, We gotta do something, like let's just let's tax something on, let's let's find another revenue stream. Like we gotta hedge against our our our main business going down. And you're kind of on the on you know, in those conversations with them, I think. So you you have a say and you can kind of give some guidance.
where have you seen ⁓ clients ⁓ efforts, you know, be fruitful when they're saying, Yeah, let's let's do this type of thing? Do you have any any experience?
Jeff Holman (30:21)
you can share. Yeah. So the mental image I think works really well, sort of like level one, is to think about just technology in general, but especially AI, as making your current offering like this, I wish I had a better word. ⁓ making your current offering more muscular. Like you like when you if you're a s if you're a salesperson and you are armed without any mental load, like you can get into flow with a customer because effortlessly everything you need to know
competitive stuff, your product mix, all your data, that you are there and you are armed, you are smarter, you are more present, you've got more to offer than whoever they talk to, you know, if it's an RFP, the other three guys, you go into that and you are just dialed in because of the technology. I think that's there's a can there's a case to be made for winning market share by getting better at what you're doing and not faster at what you're doing. Faster comes with it, but get better through AI,
And I think that's a pretty compelling message because I think the things that won't go away, the people the people things that people like will stay. And how do I get better at that?
Mike LaVista (31:29)
I t man. You're you're you're hitting a cord here. ⁓ another music metaphor, I guess. Yeah. You're hitting a cord here. Like I I think of the the legal industry and ⁓ how many how many ⁓ how many clients within the legal industry are completely satisfied with the services they receive from their attorneys. Right. W we we all as attorneys, law firms have so much room to ⁓ just make it more robust, make it better, make it stronger as as you as you said. So
I think I gotta I think I gotta write that one down and maybe take it to my team here after this. So
Jeff Holman (32:04)
Because because you you don't you don't it's it's it's all about this. For me it's about finding and this like sounds like just kind of consulting speak. It really is finding more value adding activities and services. So as as a lawyer, I hate that I have to pay you to read the thirty nine page document. I love what you get out of it. I get you have to do it, but why does it take so long? Like you know what I mean? So so if we can if we can get to the value creating part faster and better, ⁓ my God, everyone wins and I want to spend more on legal.
my my lawyer actually did a great job a few years ago convin not convincing me, but ⁓ getting me up to speed with the idea that legal is an investment. Like the three times I didn't call him about a contract are the three times we got absolutely blasted. And if he's listening, yes, I understand. Thank you, Jim. And and and so but but it's be but it's because I didn't want to pay for that s review, which is so short sighted and dumb. But if I made it if I can get to the value part, it's so much better.
Mike LaVista (32:59)
Well, and the same would apply with with AI these days, right? Well I I think a lot of people are holding off. Well, wait, wait and see, where's this headed? And, you know, maybe you don't want to go blow your entire ⁓ profit from the last year on on a project that's untested, but maybe you need to maybe you need to start making investments instead of watching from the sidelines, right? So that you so that you can again get back into the first strokes. ⁓
tools that are gonna work with your industry and with with your team. So ⁓ very good. Well okay, so let's get back into maybe breakout moments for a minute because you mentioned ⁓ initially one breakout moment where ⁓ it was a little bit of luck coming you know, third month closing and coming into a client with Citibank via another another agency or something. What where have you where have you seen the biggest ⁓ leverage points
⁓ since that kind of initial time in your business.
Jeff Holman (33:59)
So I think there's two big ones. The the the one that really like changed the trajectory quite literally of the company was ⁓ a realization that we were talking about what we do. And if you're in a service business and you're at a networking event, you go, I'm a lawyer and I serve commercial, blah blah. I'm a you know, the web developer, we make websites and
Mike LaVista (34:19)
That's what people ask you. It's not only not only that's what we say, but they're like what do you do? And of course we're gonna we're gonna answer. This is what I do.
Jeff Holman (34:26)
And because in a way it's it's easy and and it's in your brain. Like there's a place in your brain that like has identified what you do, right? Yeah. And I think that so the breakthrough was to switch to the problems we solve and for whom. And so, you know, so and so if people ask what I do, I I I just I do jujitsu that and I turn it into the problems we solve without even saying anything about it. And you know, when when when all of a sudden you're w when you're a software developer, people are waiting to
for a moment where they need software development or whatever. And that almost never happens. But when I say like, you know, we work on, you know, creating a strategic advantage for companies using using technology, ⁓ all of a sudden it's like, well, what does that mean? And ⁓ you know, well, ⁓ and we, you know, we work with companies who like honestly, if you want to re refer me to someone, we only want to work with the people who you think don't need us at all because I got everything buttoned up. And the answer is I've never seen anyone with everything buttoned up. But people who are winning,
can continue to win much more easily. And so all of a sudden now that that conversation led to more strategic conversations, bigger numbers, ⁓ higher people higher up in the organization, more, you know, working with the CEOs as opposed to the CIOs who are terrific but have to go ask for money and permission. And so, you know, finding finding the problem you solve, it was the the first breakthrough. And then the other one, which every company is scared to do, is to find a niche. And
It can't be like you know, you can't work for everybody. Well, you know who do you serve? Well, we serve, you know, ⁓ small medium ⁓ businesses all the way up to enterprise and every market in the US and Canada and Mexico and overseas. It's like, I don't even know what you do. But if you say, you know, you know, ⁓ we're a law firm that specializes in, you know, section eight housing and not that you do, but like all of a sudden people I know a section eight housing person.
And and and all of a sudden you you you narrow down to that niche. And so we've actually drilled down to a couple of niches that we're like really, really good at. And one of them is is like so we we work a lot with tribal casinos. So like you know, here ⁓ you know, casinos run by a tribe on a reservation usually or sometimes not. ⁓ and we're really good at some of the the elements of that business. And all of a sudden, it's not a big market, but if we got, you know, like the fame if we got two percent of it, I could retire tomorrow. So
Like but all of a sudden when you have a problem like that, we have a ton of experience. We're excited about it. We know the twists and turns and those are the referrals we're looking for. It's not a typical industry, but like it's it took some courage to stop saying we work for everybody, but that's that's been really successful.
Mike LaVista (37:02)
Well and those go hand in hand, right? If you if you work for everybody, you can't articulate a problem or an outcome that you're that that you provide because you you don't know what ⁓ you you you don't you can't identify one that that crosses all boundaries. And so ⁓ no that that's that's perfect. How is ⁓ w when you made these changes, ⁓ how did your team ⁓ leverage that? 'Cause you know, I don't know exactly who does the selling or who does the, you know, the the kind of account management for your team but
But I would guess if you if you ⁓ kind of ⁓ disperse this this way of thinking across your team, all of a sudden throughout the c customer journey, they're gonna have a totally different ⁓ totally different experience as a customer if everybody along the way is saying, this is the problem we solve, total this is the outcome we go after. You're you're you're I our ideal client. We work with you, you know, people who like you all the time. So we know what we're doing. Now you're
You're you're not just marketing differently, you're you're creating an experience that's different. Yeah.
Jeff Holman (38:06)
Honestly, the biggest response is I can finally tell my mom what I do and have it make sense. You know, because it's like it if it's too complicated, if it takes longer than, you know, nine seconds and eleven words, you've lost them. Yeah. And and I think that boiling down the complexity, you know, if I just said, listen, we focus on player loyalty, maximizing player loyalty for for ⁓ tribal casinos, and I just fumbled over that. But that's at least somewhat understandable as opposed to we can you know.
We can whatever you want, we can develop a piece of software for you. I don't you know tell you tell us, you know, and that's it's not helpful.
Mike LaVista (38:38)
Yeah, and then you're like, is it games? Is it the productivity? Like Yeah. That makes that makes sense. ⁓ and so once you once you made this change, like what did the business look like before you kind of nailed down this this problem ⁓ outcome approach and and where did it go with that change? What were you able to achieve?
Jeff Holman (39:01)
Yeah, so what I noticed is that before we were doing a lot of kind of transactional, almost like RFP or people call us because they need a thing and here's a price for the thing. ⁓ that's too much. Well let's make it a little bit lower. Okay, we'll do the thing. ⁓ it wasn't ⁓ I never knew where the next thing was gonna come from. And one of the biggest changes is we were kind of locked in strategically to a a an an like a core stable of like really good companies that we work with almost all the time. And
I think they see us as like an athlete. You have to s as a service provider, they have to see see that when they invest a dollar in you that they get five back. And if it's not like why we why are we paying these guys? Let's get our own guys. And so th so that changed pretty dramatically. And I think as a as a service business, our average order size, ⁓ I think I calculated it went up a little over five X over three years. Wow. And just as like a the thing in my head, like I I I now realize I do this. When I go into the CRM and I put a new deal in,
The average deal I I put in has a is an extra zero from when it did five years ago.
Mike LaVista (40:05)
So tha that's interesting. I mean, y we're really talking about brand leadership or market leadership versus price leadership, right? Which yeah for the audience, you all know this, but in case in case this is a new terminology, price leadership is really about having the lowest cost structure possible so you can compete on the lowest price possible ⁓ versus brand leadership, which is, you know, the the apple of the world. w we can charge kind of what we want because we have the brand ⁓ the the brand value that people will come to the brand. Pricing is not the is not the
the the thing. So I I think what you're describing, correct me if I'm wrong, is you guys were by identifying problems and outcomes for specific people, specific customers, you now shifted from that kind of price leadership model or maybe just broadly commodity model, commodity services model, into ⁓ brand leadership for your specific customers.
Jeff Holman (40:58)
You know, yes, and I feel like it's almost there's like a strategy behind a couple of ideas that I'll give to people that I think this works for non service businesses. but ⁓ you have to ask yourself and and then the customer's mind too, under what circumstances would I pay a premium? And so you mentioned Apple, right? I've been an Apple fan since college and ⁓ almost at a product level, it's never the best product. Right? There's
There are faster computers. There are ⁓ for a long time you had a lot more choices on other platforms for programs, all that kind of stuff. But I just something about it and I was willing to spend more. So we talked about on the musician. ⁓ I don't like spending a lot of money on tires, but I will spend five thousand dollars on a guitar because that's worth it, right? I don't know how much your sword costs, but I bet it wasn't cheap. And like there are things that you care about in life because
There is a circumstance under which you would pay a premium for it. And so part of the job as a salesperson and service is to create that idea in the person's head that's like, well, you know what? These guys are more. ⁓ but like, I don't know, there's something like that we need to go with this. And for me, the conduit to that thought is asking the better question. And so ⁓ like our our strategy or sales strategy is.
We want to demonstrate our expertise, not by bragging about ourselves, because no one wants to listen to you about brag about yourself. But if we can in the sales process hit you, and we say wound, if we can wound you with five questions you don't know the answers to, when you go away, you're gonna, you know, the other guys showed us all their portfolios, but those guys asked us, you know, what are we gonna do when we overspend our token budget and we didn't have a plan? Or when the board asks us, you know, hey, what's happening with the AI strategy? And our answer we think kind of sucks.
Like is it worth the paypream and have the answers to those questions? I mean, I realize they're twice as much, but I really think this is these are the guys to go with. So it's it's asking if you can ask the better question, you can I like the way you framed it with the the price leadership versus the brand leadership. But I I think you earn the brand leadership with asking better questions.
Mike LaVista (43:04)
Yeah, especially at the sales stage. That makes that makes a ton of sense. You're you're almost educating through questioning rather than just, you know, bragging or whatever. Hey, here's what we've done for everybody else. And you you're just like, Hey, have you thought about this? Where I I like that. I mean that's that's where these guys convince themselves that they that they want to hire you. Yeah. 'cause they love the questions you're answering the the questions you're asking, knowing that you've got the answers or can help them get the answers. Yeah. So well and ⁓ and the
I I wanna just focus for just a moment too on what you said before because y you know, a five X or a a ten X multiple on on you know, sales, revenue in the company because you because you niche down, I mean that's how often do you think that works? I think a I think we all hear about that, but I I think a lot of people are still scared to say, Yeah, I'm I'm committed to it. I think it's gonna work and I'm gonna actually niche down.
And so they don't niche down, they just they they stay general, they never really see the fruits of it. Is it like i d is that common, do you think? You see competitors who who resist that niching down?
Jeff Holman (44:11)
There's a ⁓ it's fine. There's a company in Chicago that I I like to make fun of. ⁓ I'm sure it's a great company. But the name of the company is just decks. And they have all the used to have all these parts these ⁓ bus benches around the city that said just decks. And then they start expanding and then around the edge of the decks, so it says just decks, and then it would say, and pools and siding and windows, and all these and you're like, what do they even do? And and I know for all of us we want to be everything to everybody.
But just think about the power of simplification and especially simplification in the buyer's mind about what it is that what problems you're solving and who you are. ⁓ I I had a friend who was a big shot at Domino's for a while, pizza. And he says something like part of the part of the the message was early on, I think they've changed and they haven't done as well, ⁓ is they only offered like four or five pizzas and like the s the for sodas they had coke and like seven up, and that was it.
And he's we should offer Diet Coke. He's no, simplicity. And and just like really limiting, I just saw the guy, the CEO of Costco's speak recently. You know, if you go to Costco, there's one brand of coffee maker, but I'm with this other one. Tough, we have one. And it's I think the twelfth largest company in the world. And so when you look at you know your competitors who like, you know, you know, we're the leaders in healthcare, whatever. If you're a healthcare company, you go with them. And you and you, your your company, you lose because you're everybody. And so I really feel like just
Think about all the examples around you and and really ⁓ I think the power of putting the idea in people's minds, like they want to put you in a slot, let them and give them something that's valuable to to to put you into because then then you'll start seeing those referrals because now I know who you are. If you're just I'm I I had a friend who's a lawyer. What does he do? I think, I don't know, I don't know. But if I find out he's like a, you know, a divorced attorney, God forbid, whatever, you're like,
You need to talk to Charlie because that's what he does. You know, not you you give them the momentum they need to create those referrals.
Mike LaVista (46:11)
I love this. There's kind of a theme going on. Simplify simplifying the decision making process for your customers. You know, ask the right questions, ⁓ help them understand, make the make the choices simple. I think we said earlier in the thing in in the in our discussion on a on another note, we talked about well, you don't want three or four choices. You want you want one or two choices, max. Make make the decision easy that the other place here. So I love this. I I love this, Mike. This has been fantastic. ⁓ with with all this that we've said.
For somebody who's who's a CEO, ⁓ building their company, ⁓ I don't want to say following in your footsteps because everyone has their own path, but a lot of the a lot of the ⁓ milestones along the way are similar. For somebody who's traveling a similar path and runs into some of these milestone moments, what what what advice would you give them to you know, maybe focus on the opportunity than the then the challenge or the obstacle?
In those situations? How would you advise them?
Jeff Holman (47:12)
inadvertently plugging my book I wrote a few years ago. I think the the the main idea is simply a mindset idea. And if you're you know when you're when you're facing a challenge, it's the difference between, you know, I'm at the free throw line. Am I gonna make this this this foul shot or am I gonna miss it? And I think if you believe you're gonna make it, I think everyone would agree your your chances are better than if you think you're not gonna make it. So some of it's just a choice. It's just jump in the pool. It's introduce yourself at the conference. It's you know
Take the take the leap. The ⁓ you know, fear kills so much. It's it's it's the it's the reason behind so many things that go wrong. And I don't think there's even an intellectual argument to be made against niching down. And yet and I'm I'm here talking about like I got it nailed. I do not. And it it's a struggle every day because something cool comes in. we got a a lead from a medical thing. That sounds interesting. and so it's like really like focusing in on that and being consistent with it.
You can see the evidence all around you about the peop maybe even the people you know. You know that the we all have that that friend or person in our network like, how did that guy sell his company for a hundred million dollars? And I bet you right now, if you think about it, they did something super focused and simple in a niche market and then they crushed it.
Mike LaVista (48:29)
I love that. Well, focusing down. Yeah. Man, ⁓ seems like there's a lot to simplify here. In a well, a lot of complexity, but but we need to simplify it in order to really achieve the outcomes of all. So I'm gonna have to give some more thought to that, Mike. That's ⁓ that's ⁓ very insightful, I think. So ⁓ well well I appreciate you coming on the show. ⁓ it's been really a pleasure having you, Mike. It's been it's been good. I know that our listeners
love hearing just the insights from people who've been down the path before. So it's very valuable to the to the audience to see where you've been and and hear about how you think about or have thought about some of the decisions along the way.
Jeff Holman (49:10)
Jeff it's been a pleasure. You're a great host. So thanks for having me on.
Mike LaVista (49:13)
thank you. And to our audience who joined us today, thanks again for joining us on the Breakout CEO podcast. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you enjoy the show, a rating or a review goes a long way. Our mission is to promote the stories of breakout CEOs in scaling SaaS, e-commerce, and tech companies, to equip peer CEOs with valuable perspectives.
Thanks again for joining us on this episode of the Breakout CEO. I'm Jeff Holman, and I'll see you next time.
